Air France Frequence Plus - Mix Econ and Prem Econ on different segments

Hi,

I am trying to do ATL-CDG-IST outbound on Air France.
Return I want DXB-CDG, stay in CDG a few nighs, then CDG-ATL. (I will take a different airline IST to DXB.)

I can do a multi city booking on the website. The website quotes $2400 for premium economy for this entire trip, and $1700 for regular economy.

I want to see if I can mix premium economy and economy. For example, ATL-CDG and CDG-ATL on premium, while CDG-IST and DXB-CDG on regular economy. I called Air France a few times and the agents could not figure out how to do it.

Does anyone have experience with mixing classes on different segments? I don't want two book to different tickets because its costs much more and outbound I want my bags checked all the way to IST.

Thanks

I am trying to do ATL-CDG-IST outbound on Air France.
Return I want DXB-CDG, stay in CDG a few nighs, then CDG-ATL. (I will take a different airline IST to DXB.)

I can do a multi city booking on the website. The website quotes $2400 for premium economy for this entire trip, and $1700 for regular economy.

I want to see if I can mix premium economy and economy. For example, ATL-CDG and CDG-ATL on premium, while CDG-IST and DXB-CDG on regular economy. I called Air France a few times and the agents could not figure out how to do it.

Does anyone have experience with mixing classes on different segments? I don't want two book to different tickets because its costs much more

Short answer: I don't think it's possible in the way you are asking for...

Longer explanation:

Whether this is possible will be determined by the 'combinations' and 'stopovers' part of the Fare Rules of the fares you are interested in.

In particular, the Fare Rules will say something like:
Combinations
Open jaws/round trips/circle trips
Fares may be combined on a half round trip basis
- To form single open jaws
- To from round trips/circle trips
Provided... <various conditions are met>

Stopovers
2 free stopovers permitted on the pricing unit


You are looking for an open jaws ATL-CDG-IST/DXB-CDG-ATL, with an inbound stopover in CDG. This should be possible in the same fare-class (eg: all economy, or all premium economy).

However, if you want to mix economy and premium economy, then the crucial wording is "on a half round trip basis" (which seems to be in nearly every combinations rule I've ever seen - apart from the ones which say "no combinations"...)

So, you could do ATL-CDG-IST in economy, and DXB-CDG-ATL in premium economy, or vice versa, (as that's combining two 'half round trips'). However, you can't (easily) do ATL-CDG in premium economy, CDG-IST/DXB-CDG in economy, and CDG-ATL in premium economy (or vice versa) as one ticket - as that's not two 'half round trips'.

If you wanted to book it as in the second example, I think you'd need to do either:
- CDG-ATL-CDG in premium economy as one ticket, and CDG-IST, DXB-CDG as two separate one-way tickets in economy (but this is likely to be expensive); or:
- CDG-ATL-CDG in premium economy as one ticket, and CDG-IST/DXB-CDG as an open-jaws (if possible) in economy as another ticket (this should be less expensive than the option with two one-ways, but probably would still not be cheap)

Doing it as one ticket is likely to be more cost-effective, but this would mean going economy in one direction, and premium economy the other - not trying to switch cabin-class in CDG.


and outbound I want my bags checked all the way to IST.

This, however, should not be a problem. Even if you had separate tickets ATL-CDG and CDG-IST, AF should be able to check your bags all the way through from ATL to IST (as long as your schedule allows the published minimum connection time in CDG).

As explained by KQ321, on a single ticket, combinations are possible but only by the half round trip (i.e. ATL-IST in one class, DXB-ATL in the other). However, it is also worth noting that not all economy buckets are combinable with all premium economy buckets, so to move to combinable buckets may well result in a more expensive ticket than a straight premium economy itinerary.

What KQ321 mentions in terms of buying a return ATL-CDG and separate CDG-IST/DXB-CDG is also possible but bear in mind that with separate tickets, your itinerary won't be protected. i.e. For instance, if your DXB-CDG is late and you miss your CDG-ATL as a result, you will lose it (if your ticket doesn't allow for changes in the case of a no show) even if both are operated by AF. AF might decide to suspend the rule and protect your next flight anyway, but this is neither certain nor owed to you. I would therefore tend to advise against it unless it represents a significant saving. Of course, the same applies to your IST-DXB on another airline so if you are arriving on the same day, better leave plenty of time for the connection.

Thanks to both of you for the responses. Now we are revising it to do ATL-IST via layover in CDG, and return IST-CDG-ATL (stop in CDG for a few days).

We agree with what you are saying about it being more feasible doing it by the half-roundtrip - outbound in one cabin type and return on another cabin type. However, the Air France phone agents still don't appear to know how to do this and are quoting separate tickets for outbound and return making it very expensive.

Do you know if its possible for me to check on some website outbound in one cabin type and return in another cabin type on the same ticket? (it doesn't appear to be possibe on Air France website or other websites). If not, I will call them a few more times to see if I can get them to understand, or just pay up and get premium economy roundtrip.


Thanks again.

AF web booking engine is very simple and cannot be used for playing with fare buckets. If AF reservation agents cannot do the fare mixing, it will be difficult to do (but some TA cpossibly could). I suggest calling AF again and hope that another agent can do it.

Have you tried calling Delta to get them to ticket it for you? They should be able to sell you just about any AF fare, especially trans-Atlantic ones. I've had them do economy in one direction and premium economy in the other.

To price out things like this, try http://matrix.itasoftware.com. Tell it you want to put in advanced routing codes, and then try putting in "DL+ /f bc=w" (without the quotes) for the portion(s) where you want premium. This says to pull Delta-coded flights that book into the premium economy fare bucket. In doing this, I found a mixed economy outbound and premium economy return ATL-CDG-IST-CDG(stopover)-ATL. It pulled AF flight numbers for everything but the last segment. You can also try "AF+ /f bc=A", which will restrict your search to Air France's cheapest premium economy fares. DL has some W fares that match AF A fares, and then some more expensive (more flexible) ones that align with AF's more expensive premium economy fares.

Thanks this is great info.

Originally I was entering a multi-city booking on the website and I entered it as 4 individual segments:
Segment 1: ATL-CDG
Segment 2: CDG-IST (4 hour layover from the ATL-CDG leg)
Segment 3: IST-CDG
Segment 4: CDG-ATL (3 days stop in CDG).

I entered Segment 1 and 2 separate even though its just a same day layover (I don't know why I did that). When I did it the way above, then the cost on premium voyageur was $2200 RT. However when I got to the checkout page I got a technical error each time. So I called Air France and they are quoting a price of $4800 RT (instead of $2200).

They said I have to do segment 1 and 2 as ONE segment and cannot break it up (even though its the same flights on the same day).

So the way the agents on the phone do it is:
Segment 1: ATL-IST (4 hour layover in CDG)
Segment 2: IST-CDG
Segment 3: CDG-ATL (3 days stop in CDG).

If I do this way online, then I see the same price as the agents give ($4800) and it lets me checkout and complete the reservation without any technical error.

I guess I was entering the information incorrectly on the website, and thought the price was much lower than it is. I wonder why this happens? Anyway, I guess this trip will have to wait for now. :(

Thanks, all, for the helpful information.

If I do this way online, then I see the same price as the agents give ($4800) and it lets me checkout and complete the reservation without any technical error.


If I may say, what a ridiculous price. I think you are right to give it a miss as such you should be able to get much cheaper with other routings/airlines or in all Y, premium eco is nowhere near worth that much.

If I may say, what a ridiculous price. I think you are right to give it a miss as such you should be able to get much cheaper with other routings/airlines or in all Y, premium eco is nowhere near worth that much.
I'm wondering if OP's dates aren't rather fixed, to get that sort of fare. Seems like at least one direction must be booking into a more expensive fare bucket. That or the economy fare that combines with the PV fare is a more expensive bucket.

I was looking at ATL-CDG on 5/12, CDG-IST on 5/13, IST-CDG on 5/19, and CDG-ATL on 5/23.

All the flight times we wanted were showing up on premium econ as $2179 on Kayak and the ITA Matrix that you mentioned (thanks mtkeller, that's a great site!). Only way I could replicate that on AirFrance.com was by doing multi-city with four segments, but that was not allowed. Combining the first two segments is the only way that would work but at a rip off price.

Eventually some other flight times showed up as $2179 with the phone agent for those dates, but all the flight time were very undesirable (late night, early mornings etc) and the only seats available for the long haul segments were middle seats away from each other.

Anything after 5/12 is showing up around $2800 now, I guess as we move into summer.

$2179 per ticket for 2 tickets would have been great!. My older parents will probably just settle for regular economy class as we don't feel like we can justify extra $600 per person for later dates - but the flights are not that long so they should be OK (and get a break in CDG on the way back).

But yes, that $4800 per person is ridiculous. For those dates, Cathay Pacific Business Class to HKG was going for $4700 RT from JFK.